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Spion Kop (or Kop for short) is a colloquial name or term for a number of terraces and stands at sports stadia, particularly in the United Kingdom; so named due to their steep nature, resembling a hill near Ladysmith, South Africa that was the scene of the Battle of Spion Kop in the Second Boer War.
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History
The first recorded reference to a sports terrace as Kop was at Woolwich Arsenal's Manor Ground in 1904. A local newsman likened the silhouette of fans standing on a newly raised bank of earth to soldiers standing atop the hill at the Battle of Spion Kop. Two years later, in 1906, Liverpool Echo sports editor Ernest Edwards noted of a new open-air embankment at Anfield: "This huge wall of earth has been termed 'Spion Kop', and no doubt this apt name will always be used in future in referring to this spot". The name was formally consummated in 1928 upon construction of a roof. It is thought to be the first terrace officially named Spion Kop. Many other English football clubs and some Rugby league clubs (such as Wigan's former home Central Park) followed suit and applied the same name to stands in later years.
Villa Park's old Holte End is historically the largest of all Kop ends closely followed by the old South Bank at Molineux, both once regularly holding crowds in excess of 30,000. By the mid 1980s Hillsborough's Kop had become the largest roofed terrace in Europe, with a capacity of around 25,000.
Composition
There is much conjecture about what type of stand constitutes a Kop. The size and location of the stand in the stadium varies, with most being located behind the goal and being occupied by its club's most vocal supporters. It is usually a single tiered stand and traditionally terraced. However, in England, safety regulations brought into effect after the 1989 Hillsborough disaster has required many to be made all seated. It is not necessarily the largest stand in the stadium and does not have to have a particularly large capacity; for example, Chesterfield's stadium the Recreation Ground has a Kop with a capacity of only a few thousand.
Kopites
The supporters on Liverpool's Kop helped make Anfield famous for its atmosphere.[1] "Kopites" is a collective name given to the supporters of Liverpool Football Club.
Kops
References
- ^ Duke, Greg. Football First 11: Stunning stadiums CNN. October 29, 2008.
Sources
- Inglis, Simon. The Football Grounds of England and Wales (Collins Willow, 1982)
- Kelly, Stephen F. The Kop, (Virgin Books, 2005)
- Pearce, James. How Kop tuned in to glory days, Liverpool Echo. 23 August, 2006.
- Chapple, Mike. Spion Kop's mixture of myth and magic Liverpool Daily Post, 25 August, 2006.
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